Air Zimbabwe
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Air Zimbabwe is the national airline of Zimbabwe, based in Harare. It operates services in southern Africa, to Asia, and to Europe. Its main base is Harare International Airport (HRE).
Code Data
History
The airline was established on 1 September 1967 as Air Rhodesia after Central African Airways Corporation was dissolved and started operations in 1967. It became Air Zimbabwe Rhodesia in 1978 and then Air Zimbabwe in April 1980 when the Republic of Zimbabwe gained independence. It began services on 2 April 1980 to London Gatwick. Air Zimbabwe took over the freight airline Affretair in 1983. It was privatised in 1997. The initial fleet of five Boeing 707 sourced from Lufthansa replaced the Boeing 720 aircraft used by Air Rhodesia. These 707's joined the remaining Vickers Viscount fleet and a few Douglas DC-3, which were phased out in the 1980's. Three Boeing 737 aircraft were ordered from Boeing in the mid 80's to enhance regional routes. Longhaul operations which were the 707's domain, were gradually phased out in the early to mid 90's and replaced with two Boeing 767 aircraft which are still in service today. A British Aerospace BAe 146 was added to the fleet from the airforce in the 1980s. Fokker 50s were used for a while and the BAe 146 has been grounded for some time.
In 2005 the airline bought two MA-60 turboprop from China which were supplemented by a third donated example in 2006 to operate domestic and short regional routes. It was announced in 2006 that the government had ordered 5 Ilyshin Il-96 aircraft from Russia (2 Passenger and 3 Freight versions) to replace the ageing 767's.
In 2003 it was reported that Air Zimbabwe had been surviving on a shoe string budget and at the mercy of local and international banks. In February 2004 it was reported that Air Zimbabwe had been temporarily suspended by IATA over unpaid debt. In November 2004 a Harare to Beijing service was started. The Beijing service is served twice weekly via Singapore. In April 2006 it was reported that passenger numbers had fallen from 1 million in 1999 to 230 thousand in 2005. Acting chief executive Captain Oscar Madombwe blamed the decline on negative publicity about the political and economic situation in the country, safety concerns among travellers (which he claimed were unjustified), and shortages of hard currency, new equipment and fuel. [link]
Services
Air Zimbabwe operates services to the following destinations (at March 2006):
- Domestic: Bulawayo, Harare, and Victoria Falls.
- International: Beijing, Blantyre, Dar es Salaam, Dubai, Johannesburg, Lilongwe, London, Lubumbashi, Lusaka, Mauritius, Nairobi, Singapore.
Fleet
The Air Zimbabwe fleet consists of the following aircraft (at April 2006):
- 2 Boeing 767-200ER
- 3 Boeing 737-200
- 3 MA60 (as of late June 2006 2 were temporarily out of service due to a shortage of spare parts and an emergency landing made at Victoria Falls Airport by one of the planes.[link]) Zimbabwe has never been able to have all three of the new planes running at the same time and as of mid July 2006 all three were out of action. [link]
External links
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